


Ordinary

by Builder



Series: Powers/No Powers Choose-Your-Own-Adventure [28]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Caretaking, Depressed Bucky Barnes, Depression, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Fever, Flu, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: When he gets to the bedroom, Bucky’s there, sitting on the end of the bed with a towel around his waist.  He’s hunched with his forearm on his thigh, his hair damp and wavy in curtains on either side of his face.Steve approaches slowly, though it’s impossible to sneak up on Bucky.  “Hey,” he murmurs again.  It’s if he’s just gotten home, but this time he knows what he’ll find.  Somehow that changes his perspective.  Bucky looks different.  Not sad.  Almost…beautiful.He lifts his head, his eyes still runny and sparkling, his cheeks and lips flushed pink.  His hair looks black compared to the milky color of his face.Steve smiles in spite of himself.  He crosses the room in two careful strides, then fluidly sinks to his knees at Bucky’s feet.  With the added hight of the bed, Bucky’s perhaps eight inches taller.  The perspective takes him back in time, and Steve finds him even more perfect.





	Ordinary

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @builder051

_____

 _There goes my hero_  
Watch him as he goes  
There goes my hero  
He’s ordinary

_____

Sometimes Steve dreads coming home.  He dawdles around his cubicle, packing his bag, then taking things out and packing them again.  He turns down side streets to avoid the setting sun’s glare on the visor of his helmet, leaning with the sway of his bike and holding his breath with childlike enjoyment.

The wonder wears off about a mile from their row of townhouses.  It always does, and a different kind of wonder starts up.  Is he too late?  Is today the day he’ll come home to find Bucky…  He doesn’t want to finish the thought.  He wants to be home.  Guilt replaces the thrill in the pit of his stomach, and he speeds up, though it isn’t fun anymore.

Steve parks his bike in the garage and lets himself in through the laundry room.  The click of his key in the lock is loud and almost painfully suspenseful.  Which it shouldn’t be.  It’s not like he doesn’t do this every day.  But any day could become the worst day.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve calls.  His well-trained eyes alight on the back of Bucky’s head, just visible over the back of the sofa.  Right where he left him.  It’s zero sum, Steve decides.  Neither a good sign nor a bad one.

“I’m home.”  Steve leaves his bag and helmet in the hall and bends to untie his shoes.  "How was your day?“

Bucky doesn’t reply.  For a second Steve’s disappointed, but then a sniff and creak of compressed couch springs drift to his ears.  Bucky may be lacking words, but he’s not giving off the stony silence of numbness.

"Hey,” Steve says again, “You ok?”  His voice drops to a loud whisper.  It’s the voice he uses with the scared boy in the burning building, the make-a-wish girl asking for an autograph.  It’s not the way Bucky used to talk to him when their roles were reversed.  But Steve’s issues were different back in the day.  Or maybe they weren’t, they just treated them differently.  Steve’s glad times have changed, because he can’t shake the feeling that Bucky deserves better.  He wishes he had more to give, but that’s part of the problem.  He gives his all, all the time.  He can’t seem to stop.

Bucky turns his head and blinks at Steve.  His hair is greasy at the scalp but dry at the ends, standing up in a frayed halo of static from the point where his head meets the couch cushion.  "Hm.“  He makes a glottal humming sound, his Adam’s apple bobbing and strings of mucous clinging to his lips as his opens his mouth.

"Oh, Buck.”  Steve sits beside him, already reaching for his flushed cheek before Bucky says anything.  He still doesn’t as Steve cups the fever-warmed flesh in his palm, then switches to the backs of his knuckles.

Bucky blinks again, and his glassy eyes pool to overflowing.  His nose starts to drip, too.  "I…ugh.“  He turns his head maybe an inch toward his stump shoulder, like he’s considering wiping his face on it, but his eyes unfocus and he stops.

Steve wipes under Bucky’s lashline with his thumb and tucks his other hand against his jaw.  It’s not like his temperature will feel any different a few inches down, but he still has the urge to check.  "You’re burning up,” Steve murmurs.  "When did that happen?“

"I don’t…”  Bucky chokes himself on a wet inhalation, his shoulders shuddering as he struggles against a fit of hacks.

“Alright.”  Steve forces a smile, hoping it isn’t too far towards pitying.  He’s almost relieved that something’s physically wrong, something obvious, something fixable.  But he’s also aware of how hard it is to simply exist through aches and illness when the brain has a hard enough time managing a healthy body.  “It’s ok.”  

Bucky gulps down another cough.  His diaphragm seems to have stopped its spasms, but he’s still moving, shaking all over.  Even his teeth are chattering under the low whoosh of his mouth-breathing.  

He looks exhausted.  Older.  The fine lines under his eyes seem especially dark and sunken, like canyons cut deep and filled with the salt of his tears.  But he seems young, too.  A teenager who still needs a hug from his mom.  A puppy who forgets he’s housebroken.  

Steve hates it when he’s like this.  Bucky’s there, right in front of him, but just beyond his reach.  It’s like he’s trapped in glass, or maybe ice.  He’s a quiet, indecisive reflection of himself, tripping back towards the scared, hollowed out creature he’d been when he first showed up on Steve’s doorstep.

They’re past this.  Years past it.  But at least it’s something Steve knows how to deal with.  He’ll ask the questions.  Hope for answers.  And in the end, wind up issuing orders.  Loving ones, but orders all the same.

“Have you taken anything?” Steve asks.  Bucky’s trembling with cold, and the wool afghan is still folded over the back of the sofa.  Of course he hasn’t taken anything.  

Bucky shakes his head.

“Alright.  How about water?  Drink anything?”

An even smaller head shake.  A quick, painful looking swallow.  Bucky’s lips part again and he croaks, “I…threw up…”

“Aw, Buck.”  Steve pats his shoulder.  “I’m sorry.”  He runs over the logic and mental math.  Twelve plus hours with no food or drink; he probably didn’t throw up.  But he looks miserable enough that he probably wishes he did.  Even Steve wishes he did, purely for the fact that it would’ve gotten him up off the couch for a few minutes.  He doesn’t like the thought of Bucky sitting there all day, stewing in his own germ-ridden juices.

“How about you take a shower,” Steve suggests.  “Breathe some steam, get cleaned up.  Then we’ll get you set up in bed.”  He doesn’t mention Gatorade or ginger ale or crackers, though he intends to offer all three.  

Bucky inhales again, the mucous clotting his sinuses crackling.  Steve wants to wince, but he forces himself not to.  He notices with a pang of guilt that there isn’t even a litter of used tissues around Bucky.  He’s just been snuffling it in all day.  

“Come on.  Let’s go upstairs.”  Steve wraps his arms around Bucky’s chest to help him up, keeping the hold as loose as possible to avoid accidentally pinching him.  

Bucky leans into him and shuffles his feet.  He doesn’t speak, though his body is full of the sounds of sickness.  His rattling breath comes in shallow gasps as they climb the stairs.  Steve thinks he can hear Bucky’s gut sloshing, his joints creaking.  Maybe it’s just the sound of his own worry.  

Bucky sits on the closed toilet as Steve starts the shower, letting the bathroom fill with steam.  Steve busies himself retrieving the extra quilts at the top of the linen closet, then peeks back in to remind Bucky to get in and wash if he feels up to it.  

“Ok…”  Bucky rasps, his whisper barely audible over the rush of the water.  It’s better than silence.  Barely.  

Steve hovers for twelve minutes, pacing in and out of the bedroom, watching the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock advance.  Eventually he can’t stand it anymore, and he goes downstairs, taking cans and bottles from the fridge and opening drawers looking for ibuprofen.  Then he remembers that’s upstairs in the bathroom.  He doesn’t hear the sound of the shower anymore.  Steve drops everything and takes the stairs two at a time, unable to believe he’d left Bucky alone again.  

“Stupid,” he mutters to himself.  “Stupid.”  When he gets to the bedroom, Bucky’s there, sitting on the end of the bed with a towel around his waist.  He’s hunched with his forearm on his thigh, his hair damp and wavy in curtains on either side of his face.  

Steve approaches slowly, though it’s impossible to sneak up on Bucky.  “Hey,” he murmurs again.  It’s if he’s just gotten home, but this time he knows what he’ll find.  Somehow that changes his perspective.  Bucky looks different.  Not sad.  Almost…beautiful.

He lifts his head, his eyes still runny and sparkling, his cheeks and lips flushed pink.  His hair looks black compared to the milky color of his face.  

Steve smiles in spite of himself.  He crosses the room in two careful strides, then fluidly sinks to his knees at Bucky’s feet.  With the added hight of the bed, Bucky’s perhaps eight inches taller.  The perspective takes him back in time, and Steve finds him even more perfect.  

“Hey, Buck.”  Steve touches his cheek and tucks a loose curl behind Bucky’s ear.  His skin is hot and supple, and even his hair is warm.  It’s lustrous.  

Steve leans close and kisses him tenderly.  Chastely.  Bucky’s lips are cracked, though not quite dry.  A day’s growth of beard brushes against Steve’s chin as he pulls back, and the subtle burn lingers.  

“Hey,” Bucky says, his voice low and husky.  He’s still so obviously ill, but also not, caught in the limbo of born-again freshness before the mucous clots his nose and turns his stomach again.  He’s perfect, just as he is.  And Steve has nothing to say.  He doesn’t want to move; he doesn’t want Bucky to move.  He wants everything to stay still.  If only for one moment.


End file.
